The
mayor was unable to attend that meeting due to a death in his family.

"I'm
tired of paying bills when I don't understand some stuff," Lee said.
"And me being on (the) finance (committee), there's some stuff I'm not going
to keep going along with."

Lee's
motion, which passed unanimously, called for the special meeting that was held
Tuesday. However,
on Tuesday, Lee posed only two questions to Coachman or to Otis Smith, the
city's accountant.

He
asked for an explanation of the way the charges for some routers that were purchased
from ATT and used by several city departments were listed.

Lee
also told the mayor that he had been under the impression that the city's bingo
account had been closed. However,
Coachman told Lee that the account had not been closed. In fact, the mayor told
Lee said that some money from the account had been used recently to pay for
some travel by council members.

Reasor
asked Coachman what happened to any money that was left in a bank account
for the Fairfield Civic Center that was closed a few months ago.

The
mayor said there was no money in the account when it was closed. "If the
account was dissolved, that means there was no money in that account, and the
account was closed because it was probably generating monthly fees," he said.

Reasor said
that it was his understanding that the account had still been used.

"The
civic center account could not be used because it was closed," Coachman said. "All
the civic center activity comes through city hall."

The
mayor asked Reasor if he had any documentation regarding use of the account.

The councilman
said that he didn't have it with him but would bring it to the next meeting.

"If
you'll bring it forward, Mr. Reasor, we'll be happy to work through that with
you," Coachman said.

Gardner
quizzed Smith at length regarding the way some outstanding checks were listed
in the bills and the nature of the charges associated with those checks.

Smith said
that the charges included a large payment for city employee health insurance
and some "pre-approved payables" from the Oct. 18 bill list.

Gardner
said that it was still difficult for him to understand what the checks were for
since there were three groups of check numbers listed with a total amount for
each group.

"Even
if they are payroll related, I think you need to identify them," Gardner said.
"I think they need to be itemized and spelled out. I can't understand this. And
if I'm here to try to approve it, I'm not going to approve it."

Gardner
also asked that Smith break out all bills by department.

Smith
said that the bills are listed by vendor rather than department, since a payment to a vendor might cover a product or service used by more than one department.

However,
Gardner asked that Smith explore a way to break the bills out so that they can
be listed both ways.

The council president also told Smith that he would like to see an itemized list of all the checks.

Coachman
said that if Gardner would put something in writing showing the way he would
like to see the bills done, the administration would attempt to comply.

"We're
not trying to be difficult," Lee said. "We're just trying to make it where we
can better understand, because there's a lot I don't understand. It's hard to
read a lot of this bill stuff."

We
would be happy to go over this with you," Coachman told Lee. "I know it can be
very, very difficult in learning how this process works on paper. We don't mind
trying to bring you forward to show you how these things are done."

The
mayor also offered to do a workshop for the council on the city's finances and
how the bills are listed.

The
council also voted 3-2 to pay $2,600 to Omar Neal -- a workshop leader,
motivational speaker and the mayor of Tuskegee, Ala. -- who led a retreat for
the Coachman and the council members at Ross Bridge in Hoover on Oct. 29.

The
purpose of the retreat was to help the mayor and council learn to work together
after recent tensions between them.

Voting
in favor were Reasor, Lee and Gardner. Voting against
the expenditure were Mack and Hardley, who raised concerns about the amount.